Dahlia Stark: The Horizon Saga
by Vayelan
Summary: Season two begins with Dahlia and her new team leaving Omega for the human colony world Horizon. Although the rescue mission was a success, she's still far from feeling like a hero. Can Dahlia and company collect themselves and rise to the occasion, especially with dark things on the horizon?
1. Episode 13 - Taking Stock

When they emerged from the cargo hold, David, Hann, and Elsai found Dahlia rooting through every drawer, box and locker she could crack open. The orange light of her omni-tool washed across the dingy bulkhead walls as she kept a digital record of everything she found.

"We need your help down below," Elsai entreated.

"No thank you," Dahlia replied. "I need to inventory our spoils of war. The three of you are probably better suited for working with trauma survivors, anyhow."

"They need a human face," David said. "One of the men would've lunged at me if my uncle hadn't vouched for me. They don't know me. I'm just another batarian, and they've seen too many of us lately."

"And I don't think they find our faceplates very welcoming," Elsai added. "A friendly human face could go a long way towards bringing those people through what they've suffered."

Dahlia practically chewed a sliver of flesh from the inside of her lip. Even if they had just punished their victimizers and were now bringing the colonists to freedom, she truly did not want to see the misery concealed below deck.

Among the items she'd catalogued so far, Dahlia counted six combat-ready hardsuits. She was already mentally disassembling them, brainstorming on how to incorporate her arc reactor and repulsors to create a flight-capable suit of armor. The fact that some of the hardsuits included kinetic barrier generators made her all the more excited for the next stage in her tech experiments.

"Dahlia, what would Imani'Barael say if she were here?" Elsai asked pointedly, forcing Dahlia from her thoughts.

"She'd tell me to take care of my fellow humans," Dahlia said with a grimace.

"And wouldn't you listen to her?"

"Nope."

"Really?" Elsai asked incredulously.

"Yeah…..but then she'd threaten to get Captain Brill on my ass, and I'd agree to go along while muttering grumpily under my breath."

Elsai dragged Dahlia, ignoring her largely incoherent mutters, to distribute the ship's scant supplies to the prisoners. There was a fair amount of water in the storage tanks, but Dahlia questioned the state of the filtration system. She also hoped that Elsai, Hann, and Jin were not terribly hungry, for there was absolutely no food safe for them to eat. Even the food stores safe for humans and batarians were limited. Dahlia realized that the pirates must have stopped at Omega to resupply, which she and the others had interrupted. Once they reached Horizon, they'd have to bargain with the colonists to get essentials. Hopefully, when Dahlia resumed inventorying the ship's contents, she'd discover some credit chits stashed away. For now, Dahlia and Elsai filled some field bottles with water and scrounged up what food rations they could to bring to the prisoners below.

The smell...was something that Dahlia would never speak of again, even though she feared it would haunt her nostrils for the rest of her life. Men, women, and children had been chained down by manacles welded to the floor and walls of the cargo hold. For untold days, they'd been forced to wallow in their own waste.

"Who're you?" chirped a little girl, her eyes brightening in her dirty face.

"My name's Dahlia," she squeaked, unsure why it was suddenly so hard to find her words. "What's your name?"

"Sofia. Are you taking us home?"

"Yeah. We'll get you home, you'll get cleaned up, you'll get some nice food, and you can sleep in a real bed."

Sofia greedily drank down the water Dahlia offered. As they passed the rest of the water around, Dahlia had to admit that Elsai was right: seeing another human brought the prisoners out of the shadowy corners of the dark cargo hold. The small lights along the ceiling were poorly maintained, and only perhaps every third actually provided any illumination.

"Why're you working with that four-eye?" one of the men asked, spitting the question at Dahlia's feet.

"His name's Dave," she said, feeling her brow furrow itself in annoyance. "He was the one who organized this rescue mission."

"I told you," a gray-haired man of Chinese descent spoke up, "He's my nephew. He's a good man."

"He's a batarian," growled the belligerent man. "If you forgot, they're the ones who did this to us."

"My brother and his wife adopted and raised him after his batarian parents abandoned him as a baby. He's good colony stock, like any of us. Thank you, Ms. Dahlia," Mr. Zhang said. "You can't imagine how much we appreciate what you've done for us."

"My friends helped just as much as I did. They deserve your thanks, too."

Mr. Zhang gently touched a hand to Dahlia's elbow, but he sharply withdrew it when she recoiled from the contact.

"I do appreciate what you've all done," he whispered, gesturing her aside. "But colony folks...even at the best of times, they can be suspicious of outsiders, especially aliens. Many of them still remember the turians as invading monsters from the stars, and even now our children are learning to fear batarians and others as pirates and killers. David is a good boy. He wants to break these old prejudices, but it's an uphill battle. At least he has help now."

Dahlia lingered in that dark place beneath the ship no longer than necessary. Once the supplies were passed around and she'd reassured the colonists as best as she could, Dahlia bolted out of the cargo hold. She didn't feel the usual anxiety creeping on, but still her skin crawled and she felt terribly unclean. Not even aboard the Flotilla, and certainly not during her childhood on glitzy and glamorous Bekenstein, had Dahlia confronted such misery and misfortune. She retreated back into the comfort of sorting through the ship's contents and planning her next mechanical project.

In addition to the six armor sets stored in crew lockers, Dahlia also counted one assault rifle, one shotgun, and the submachine gun forced from the drell woman's hands. With Hann and Jin's help scouring every nook and cranny on the ship, she found chits containing a grand total of 982 credits.

"That's not even enough for fuel to get the ship back to the fleet, is it?" Hann asked ruefully.

"You'll have to wait for your hero's return home, Hann. We might be stuck on Horizon for a while," Dahlia shook her head. "At least it can't be as bad as Omega."

"Wait," Jin interrupted. "Dahlia, couldn't you just...build a bigger version of that reactor...to power the ship?"

"Even if I had the parts to do that, it wouldn't work. An arc reactor could power the ship's internal systems and kinetic barriers, but not the thrusters. This ship uses fusion torches, which run on helium-3. That's not even getting into the eezo needed for the drive core to sustain the mass effect field to enable faster than light travel."

"Wow, I never really thought about what it cost to operate even a small ship," Hann sighed. "It sure makes me appreciate how much coordination is needed to keep the whole Flotilla going."

"I think you just hit upon your first real Pilgrimage lesson," Dahlia smirked. "Won't Elsai be proud of you?"

Dahlia's smile widened as she detected a subtle shift in Hann's shoulders, neck, and breathing pattern that, according to her experience, meant this quarian was blushing. She wanted to keep his spirits up. Depressed Hann was far less tolerable than happy-go-lucky Hann. Still, Dahlia wished she was better suited to lifting her own spirits. If she was honest with herself, she really had hoped for a greater payoff than a handful of credits, a couple slaver weapons, and a tiny, filthy ship.

Nevertheless, she did not regret helping David. The thought crossed her mind that Sofia's beaming face was enough of a reward, but then Dahlia wanted to punch herself for being so corny. She could never let Pepper hear about that; the A.I. would never let her forget about it.

"Ma'am," Pepper called over the ship's speakers. "We are closing on the planet Horizon. We will soon be within sensor range."

"Hmm, do you guys suppose the colonists will be happy to see an unidentified batarian ship approaching?" Dahlia asked sarcastically.

"Keelah, what if they try to shoot us down?" Hann cried.

"Mr. David Zhang already has the comms open," Pepper reassured the panicking quarian. "Once within range, we can request permission to land."

"It just occurred to me," Jin said, "If we're going to introduce ourselves….we should come up with a name for the ship."

"How about we call it _Freedom_ ," David shouted from the helm.

"That's too cheesy," Dahlia shouted back. "Geez, those colonists were afraid of _him_? Anyhow, why don't we call it _Buckethead_. That way, you can become Hann'Koto vas Buckethead."

"You'd have my vote," Elsai said jokingly as she emerged from the cargo hold.

"No way! Come on, be nice, you guys," Hann begged.

"Umm, if it's okay….I had a name I wanted to suggest," Jin offered meekly.

Some ten minutes later, a comm tower operator on the planet's surface demanded identification from the approaching vessel.

"This is the independent space vessel _Ryxera_ , requesting permission to land," David announced.


	2. Episode 14 - Cost of Living

As the _Ryxera_ broached the atmosphere of Horizon, a pair of outdated interceptors arrived to escort the ship through airspace over the colony's capital, Discovery. With significant help from Pepper, Jin guided the vessel towards the spaceport where they were given clearance to land. David brought his relatives up from the cargo hold so they could return to solid ground and freedom, but Dahlia pulled him aside.

"I'm probably crazy to volunteer," she said, "but you'd better let me disembark first."

"Why?"

"Whoever leaves the ship first will probably set a new personal record for most gun barrels aimed at them, and the colonists will be less trigger happy if they see a human. I'm not trying to hold anything against you, Dave, but I don't want to see you get shot right as you're about to be a big hero and set your family free."

David offered a sigh but no argument.

* * *

Once the ship had settled its stout, extended struts upon the landing pad on the spaceport fringe, Dahlia stepped down from the gangway with her hands raised in the air. She didn't feel like a criminal, even though she was joint owner of a stolen ship, yet she also didn't want to give any cause for the welcoming committee to turn into a firing squad. She silently counted six colonial militia soldiers aiming assault rifles at her, but then amended her count to seven when she noticed the sniper perched atop one of the spaceport's outbuildings.

Dahlia breathed deeply in accomplishment when, after agonizingly slow moments, she planted both feet on the weathered concrete of the landing pad without any new holes in her body. Her skin itched terribly beneath the bandages she still wore on her back to protect the mostly healed wounds from being "fired" from Orsk's market. One of the soldiers, presumably a militia sergeant, approached Dahlia with his rifle aimed downward but still clutched with both hands.

"Are you the captain of the _ISV Ryxera_?" he demanded.

"Um, we haven't quite sorted that out," she said with a nervous smile. "Our crew includes myself, a volus, two quarians, and a very nice batarian whom you definitely should not shoot. We'll answer any questions you have, but like we said over the comms, we have some rescued colonists in need of food and medicine. Please help them before locking us up."

The militia was willing and able to do both. Dahlia spent the next and most boring hour of her life in a bare white waiting room in a prefabricated security station. The rest of the crew disembarked without incident, and the freed prisoners were transported to a nearby hospital. Dahlia couldn't fault the authorities for wanting to question the ragtag crew since they were technically flying a pirate ship.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," the interrogator sardonically apologized to Dahlia when she was brought into a narrow conference room. "I'm Lieutenant Monica Rhodes with the Horizon Planetary Defense Force. I've already talked with the rest of your crew, and I'm almost completely convinced that you're not dangerous."

"You're talking to me last? Ouch, my pride," Dahlia dared to joke.

"Okay funny girl, what's your name?"

"Dahlia...Zhang," she said, hoping Lt. Rhodes ignored her momentary pause to lie. "My brother and I teamed up with the others to intercept the pirates at Omega so we could rescue our relatives and the other colonists."

"Your brother? You mean the batarian? He did not mention that you were siblings."

"One of us is adopted. Bet you can't guess which one," Dahlia smirked. "Dave was probably trying to protect me again. Growing up, we had to watch each other's backs. He caught flak for being a batarian among humans, and I took heat for having a batarian for a brother."

Dahlia had hoped that her quick thinking would at least elicit a raised eyebrow, but Lt. Rhodes remained stonefaced.

"We traced your ship's profile," Lt. Rhodes said, nonplussed. "It matches descriptions of a batarian raider that attacked a lunar colony in the Dirada System about nine days ago. Two other ships took part in the attack. Do you have any information about them?"

"No," Dahlia said with a sinking heart and turning stomach. David hadn't mentioned other raiders. She suddenly, sickeningly wondered about the colonists imprisoned aboard the other ships - if they hadn't already been taken to slave markets on some nameless world.

"We'll have to sweep your ship's computers then. It may contain clues to where the other ships went."

"Actually, you'd better let me handle that," Dahlia quickly responded.

"Why would I let a random civilian get involved in a slaver investigation?"

The hawkish gleam in Lt. Rhodes's narrowed eyes unnerved Dahlia. She didn't want the planetary militia to discover Pepper in the _Ryxera_ 's computers. However, in a flash she realized that this problem could be the solution.

"I have a specialized V.I. program that I used to trace this ship to Omega in the first place," she added to her fake story. "I would be more than happy to use it to track those other two ships for you."

* * *

Dahlia did not know whether to count herself lucky or unlucky that, not long after, she was back aboard the _Ryxera_ with her friends, as well as Lt. Rhodes and two other colonial soldiers supervising her work to trace the other slaver ships. She found this level of attention both flattering and worrying. Fortunately, Pepper needed no cue to pretend to be a simple V.I. while regurgitating the data she'd already found by combing through the ship's communication logs.

"Impressive work. I'm guessing this program isn't commercially available," Lt. Rhodes said while removing an OSD with the downloaded information.

"No way," Dahlia said, imagining that Pepper was sharing a silent laugh with her. "I've been working on Pepper for years."

"Well it works quicker than what we use. Hell, it's probably ahead of the Alliance's software. You should consider marketing it."

"That reminds me," Dahlia said, eager to change the subject, "The ship...we can keep it, right? I know we didn't exactly buy it, but I'd say we've earned it."

"Seeing as how the original owners are in absolutely no position to bring the matter to court," Lt. Rhodes answered, "I'm certainly not going to take it from you. Of course you will be on the hook for docking fees."

"Docking fees?" Hann exclaimed.

"Yeah. The Alliance, Citadel Council, and a lot of merchant companies have contracts worked out with the colonial government to use our spaceports, but independent vessels are charged docking fees. That's in addition to costs for refueling or discharging your drive core's static charge. Anyhow, thank you for your cooperation. Carry on."

The lieutenant and her subordinates departed the ship, leaving its now official crew in a decidedly less exuberant mood.

"We're never getting home, are we?" Hann groaned.

"Don't worry," Jin said. "I told you...I sold my share of my business...before leaving the station...I should be able to cover the costs."

"Thank you, Jin," Elsai said. "We really appreciate your generosity."

"I'm not just being generous," the volus pointed out. "This is the closest thing...I have to a home now...I'm not letting it be repossessed."

"Well, that might be a problem," Hann said, his words drawn out by the awkward tension he felt building up. "You see, Elsai and I were going to bring this ship back to the Migrant Fleet as our Pilgrimage gift."

"Hann, you can't take this ship back to the fleet," Elsai said solemnly.

"Dave said we could have the ship if we helped him," Hann argued. "I understand that Jin has a stake in the ship, just like you, me, and Dahlia, but we'll find a way to repay him so we can bring the ship back home."

Elsai sighed, shaking her helmeted head. Dahlia saw from the slump of the quarian girl's shoulders that she'd decided the truth had been put off long enough.

"There's something I need to tell you, Hann."


	3. Episode 15 - Imperfect

No sooner had the crew of the Ryxera officially come together than it was nearly wrenched apart. When Elsai confessed that she was not returning to the Migrant Fleet, after a brief moment of stuttering speechlessness, Hann quickly became livid.

"Don't be mad, Hann," Dahlia interrupted, trying to diffuse the bewildered quarian. "Elsai talked to me about this back at Mordin's clinic. This isn't about…"

"You told _her_ about this but couldn't talk to _me_?" Hann exclaimed to Elsai. Dahlia did not appreciate the bitter inflection he used to refer to "her." She was about to set Hann straight, but Elsai stopped her with two fingers touched softly to Dahlia's elbow. Elsai shook her head, pleading with her human friend not to match Hann's anger in kind.

"It was too difficult for me to come to you about this," Elsai said meekly. "But life aboard the Flotilla...I just can't go back to that."

"So what do you want? You want to go off with Dahlia on this ship? Scraping by on your own, no roots, no certainty? How is that any different from the fleet?"

"I've spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about this, Hann. The fleet...it can only end in one of two ways for our people. They either die out slowly, as perpetual refugees, and the ships become their tombs - or they die quickly, throwing themselves at the geth around the homeworld, and our civilization burns away like meteorites disintegrating in the atmosphere. If I go with Dahlia, I don't know what will happen. The possibilities are infinite. We can go anywhere, do anything, and it's all on us. That's what I want. So no, it is not like the Flotilla at all!"

After the words left her mouth and her helmet's speaker, Elsai regretted how harshly she sounded. She had only a moment to register her dear friend's hurt before he sharply turned and marched off the ship. Elsai couldn't bring herself to follow. Dahlia and David awkwardly stood apart as spectators, keeping their distance in tense silence. Jin looked up from face to face among the other three crew members, wishing one of them would do volus had no words and he felt just as lost as the others, but Jin distinguished himself by scrambling after Hann, nearly tripping down the gangway. His short legs struggled to catch up with the quarian, to keep him company in a difficult time.

"He'll calm down. He just needs some time," Elsai said softly. Dahlia suspected she was trying to reassure herself most of all. "I'm...I'm going to try and figure out how much fuel the ship has and see about that...drive charge thingie."

Dahlia briefly envied Elsai for having something to keep busy, but then Dahlia remembered the armor sets in the ship's lockers that she could tinker with. However, the peace of mind was short lived. Dahlia had her own secrets roiling just beneath the surface. She had none of the courage needed to confess her exile, especially not in the wake of Elsai and Hann's rift.

"Sorry if this is not the best time," Dave began, "But why did that colonial officer refer to you as my sister when she escorted us from the security station?"

Dahlia wasn't sure whether the fact that she was alone with David in the ship's living space made the conversation more or less awkward.

"Because I told her that I'm your sister," she said bluntly. "I thought it would help improve your reputation around here and keep you out of trouble. Also, I kind of needed a fake name to toss at them, and yours was the first one that popped to mind."

"Fake name? Great. What kind of trouble are you in?" David groaned, cradling his rounded, leathery forehead in his palm.

"You're the one who masterminded the theft of a pirate ship on Omega, Dave, so don't lecture me about being a troublemaker. Anyhow," Dahlia shifted her tone with a sigh, "My family is...or was...kind of famous, and that's why we were attacked. I want to keep a low profile so my parents' killers don't come looking for me."

"Hmm, I can certainly understand your caution. However, building a revolutionary flight suit and giving public demonstrations may not be the best way to lay low. Just saying."

"What can I say? I don't think too far ahead."

Dahlia excused herself brusquely, having had quite her fill of social interaction for the time being. She needed a refuge. The cargo hold reeked. David was hanging around the living quarters. Elsai was presumably haunting the engineering section with her brooding angst. Desperate, Dahlia stepped outside to be alone with Pepper.

The light of midday, tinged with hints of orange, hung over the spaceport and colonial capital. The air hummed with the low whine of vehicles and the thrumming of construction machines. It comforted Dahlia, reminding her of the familiar sounds aboard the Helash. Breathing a bit easier, she asked Pepper to call up the scans they'd made of the merc armor found in the ship's lockers.

"Ma'am, I think it best to inform you," Pepper said while conjuring the omni-tool's holographic display as requested, "That we may have a problem."

"A problem like you accidentally filmed one of the crew in the shower, or a not-fun problem?"

"My programs experienced an error when scanning the ship's computer to track the pirates. I believe I inadvertently alerted them to our current location."

"Wow. Okay, that's definitely a not-fun problem - and a hell of an error. What brought this on, Pepper?"

To Dahlia's surprise, the A.I. seemed genuinely embarrassed and sheepish to admit her mistake. Pepper explained that there were lines of code deeply buried in her algorithms that had been causing a number of small glitches that, up until now, Pepper had been able to compensate for. Just as Dahlia had based Pepper off a previous V.I. project her father had been developing, he had used another, older programming project as a foundation.

Dahlia offered to remove the malfunctioning coding, but Pepper declined.

"This 'dummy programming' is comparable to a retrovirus in human DNA. While they both may create some irregularities, they also provide the opportunity for beneficial evolution. I have already spent an incredible amount of time analyzing this dummy coding, and I suspect that it has aided my heuristic development."

"You're arguing to keep your imperfections?" Dalia asked, incredulous. This was hardly the behavior of a sentient computer. "However, it does sound like a philosophy my folks would have supported."

"I was not sentient when your father developed my original programming, so I remember little about him."

"Sometimes I worry that I didn't really know him, either," Dahlia sighed, "but I think we both know more about him than we realize."

"I do not understand."

"Don't worry. I feel that way a lot, too. Now, let's get down to the real business: the angry pirates probably coming take back their ship and gut us, not necessarily in that order. I really don't want that Lieutenant Rhodey or what's-her-name getting in my face, so we need to alert the colonial militia without revealing you or making it look like we screwed up."

Dahlia said "we" because, as far as she was concerned, she and Pepper were going to be together until the end. They were a team, if not more. Although she had styled the A.I. after her mother, Dahlia was beginning to see Pepper as a sister - especially after their shared moment reminiscing about their parents. However, Dahlia could not decide whether Pepper was a know-it-all little sister or an overly mature older sister. Either way, she felt more comfortable having both around, knowing that more dark days were ahead.


	4. Episode 16 - New Family

About an hour after Hann stormed off the ship, Jin contacted the remaining crew aboard the Ryxera - Dahlia, David, and Elsai. He informed them that he'd paid for the docking fees, for the ship to be refueled, to have its drive core static charge safely discharged, and for the cargo hold to be washed out. However, Jin also suggested that, once those matters were taken care of, they should move the ship to the grassy plains on the outskirts of the capital to avoid racking up any more costs.

"What about Hann?" Elsai asked Jin over the comm.

"I'm keeping an eye on him," the volus said. "I think he'll be okay….He just needs some time to think….We'll meet up with you….after you've moved Ryxie."

"I wonder if _he'll_ be okay," Elsai said after the call disconnected. "Ryxera passed away so recently, and you can tell by the way he refers to the ship that he is far from over it."

"The important thing is that he won't have to deal with it alone," David said. "We'll help them both when they are ready to return."

"Does that mean you'll be joining us, too, Dave?" Elsai asked.

"My uncle and his family are safe now, and it won't be too long until they're on their way home. I haven't decided what to do next with my life, and to be honest I have been considering joining up with you guys permanently."

Dahlia groaned, departing the helm. She wanted so badly to set up a workshop in the cargo hold, but it still had all the appeal of a batarian prison - coated in filth and the stench of suffering. At least Jin promised that it would be cleaned out soon, but she needed a refuge right now. While life aboard the Helash was cramped, Dahlia was given a certain amount of personal space because she was not a quarian. She had became quite comfortable with everyone keeping her at arm's length. Starting with her arrival on Omega, however, the situation changed. First Hann and Elsai, then Jin and Ryxera, and now David….being so intimately close to other people….Dahlia swore she felt hives developing on her skin.

After leaving the relative development of the capital, it became clear to Dahlia why Horizon was a prime location for colonization.

They'd arrived at a time of low traffic at the spaceport, so the Ryxera crew hadn't waited long for service. The ship's reserves of helium-3 were replenished via a small fueling tanker dispatched to their landing pad. A similar lumbering vehicle filled with water used high powered, directed streams to blast the cargo hold clean. Ground crews also connected grounding wires to conduits on the ship's hull so the static charge built up from the electric currents passed over the ship's eezo core could safely be discharged into the voltaic cells buried beneath the spaceport.

Owing to the planet's longer day cycle, the crew was able to depart the spaceport before nightfall - and before they had to suffer another billing cycle for docking fees. Jin and Pepper coaxed the ship away from the white cubes and rectangles of the colonial capital's buildings and towards a grassy overlook. They landed near a narrow stream running from the forest's edge and meandering along the terrain's contours before emptying into the main river beside the capital. Broad skiffs plied the waters hugging the settlement's edge, returning from a day's work collecting ores or harvesting crops.

The sight of commerce in motion planted certain nagging thoughts in Dahlia's mind. Even without Elsai as a conscience, Dahlia knew they just could not keep milking Jin's limited assets. Although both women resolved that, despite Hann's wishes, their new ship would not be returning to the Flotilla, Dahlia also accepted that they would not be staying on Horizon forever. Either way, they would still need credits. Dahlia remembered that she had not brought any tools from Omega, and the quarian duo would need special dietary requirements - not to mention immuno-supplements.

Dahlia's head began to spin. Although mere moments ago she had enjoyed Horizon's fresh air, now she scrambled to don her helmet again. Within its confines, she could catch her breath in relative isolation. It took a moment to understand why she felt the onset of a panic attack. Aboard the Helash, she and Imani'Barael would be given assignments - routine inspections of air filters or repairing a malfunctioning pump system. Dahlia never lacked for problems to solve, but there was always the sense that everything was under control because she was never alone.

Like Hann, now Dahlia became truly aware of the responsibilities inherent in keeping a starship and crew running. On the Helash, the burden was shared by dozens of families with generations of experience and the assurance that many other neighboring ships were always available to lend helping hands. On the Ryxera, all Dahlia had was a pair of bickering, wayward quarians, a grieving volus, and….David. Beyond his obvious family loyalty, Dahlia still knew the least about him.

* * *

"So what do you want to know?"

Dahlia found David beside the stream, gathering water to feed into the ship's filtration system. She confronted him and demanded to know more about his history.

"Let's not tapdance around the obvious," she said. David easily understood her meaning, and he prefaced his story with a bemused sigh.

David's parents - his batarian parents - were sleeper agents assigned by the Hegemony to spy on Elysium. However, they couldn't have been the best of spies since their cover was blown and they were arrested. His father was executed by colonial authorities, but his mother was pregnant at the time and her execution was stayed until after David was born. He never learned what name his birth mother might have given him before her death. Rather than sending the infant back to the Hegemony, he was adopted by Tyrus Zhang, mayor of the colony's capital Illyria, largely at the behest of his wife, Margaret.

"My father came to resent having a batarian son. He blamed me for his political career's nosedive, especially after the Skillian Blitz since the intel my birth parents provided may have aided in planning the attack on the colony."

"How did the rest of your family feel?"

"I'd risk my life to save them, as you've seen. My mother adored me. She...couldn't have children of her own, and she worried that her husband also resented her for that fact. He was a very difficult man. My Uncle Oswald Zhang, whom you've had the pleasure of meeting…"

"And rescuing," Dahlia interrupted.

"Yes. He and his family were much more welcoming. When he approached my father to invest in a mining colony venture, one of the conditions was that they had to take me with them. Uncle Ozzie reassured me that I was a gift, not a burden. Fortunately this was not too long ago, and I was old enough to understand that the problem was with my father and not with me."

"How old are you?"

"I was born in 2165, so that makes me...19."

"You had to think about it for a second?" Dahlia asked, also impressed by how young he suddenly seemed. David was seven years her junior. She suddenly wished Jin would return so she wouldn't have to be the oldest person around.

"It's not something that I think too deeply about. I spent much of my adolescence with Uncle Ozzie's family. I cut my education short two years ago to help him with his business."

"Would that be the colony that was just raided?"

David nodded in assent.

"It was an iridium mining venture on a moon of Sineaus in the Dirada System, part of the Pylos Nebula. We were several dozen families - miners, their loved ones, and support staff - living in domed settlements. Uncle Ozzie hoped to expand into a full colony by attracting helium-3 collection facilities, new mines on the other countless moons orbiting the gas giant, and eventually becoming a hub for activity in the system. After this raid, though, I'm not sure how bright our future looks."

"Have you heard from your uncle since we landed?"

"No, but my aunt contacted me. There's no solidarity. Some of the families want to return to Sineaus and go back to work. Others want to return to Alliance space, or at least somewhere in the Attican Traverse further from the Terminus Systems. A few of them actually suggested resettling here on Horizon."

"Any idea what you want to do?" Dahlia asked, receiving a head shake in response. "I thought not. I've been learning that a lot of people have trouble with that question. Jin and Elsai are apparently keen on making a home aboard our new ship. I could think of worse ways to live. You'd be more than welcome to join us."

"What about the other quarian? The 'Hann' fellow?"

"Like I said: a lot of people have trouble figuring out what they want to do."

* * *

Hours later, when the idyllic landscape drifted into starry twilight after the light of Iera disappeared below the horizon, Jin returned to the ship with Hann in tow. Their omni-tools lit their path, the GPS functions having guided them "home." Elsai ran down the gangway to greet them before stopping suddenly, remembering the rift between her and Hann earlier that day. In that moment, she noticed the water dripping from Jin's rotund pressure suit. A line of damp footprints through the grass trailed behind him.

"You fell in the stream, didn't you?" Dahlia asked sardonically as she stepped out into the night, clad in her full suit and helmet.

"It was dark," Jin moaned weakly.

"At least you float," Hann added trying to raise the volus' spirits.

"Are you feeling better, Hann?" Elsai asked her friend.

"I had a lot of time to think," his speaker buzzed. "When we left the fleet, you were worried that something bad would happen if we went to Omega. I promised we would be okay, that nothing bad would happen. Well, I've done a very bad job of keeping that promise….but I'm going to do better! I still plan to return to the fleet with a gift to make my family proud, but if you want to travel with Dahlia, then I'm coming, too, so I can make sure that everything turns out for the best."


	5. Episode 17 - Business as Usual

Dahlia couldn't sleep.

She silently slipped by the others sleeping in the bunks they claimed, and she exited the ship through the cargo hold. Even though David and the ground crews had cleaned out the refuse, she kept her helmet on rather than risk facing that smell again. The night air's cool kiss raised the tiny hairs on her neck, having slipped beneath her overjacket. She couldn't wait to begin working with the armor in the storage lockers to create a new, sealed hardsuit.

"Pepper, wake up the arc reactor and route enough power to the repulsors for sustained flight. No walls or pipes to fence us in this time."

Dahlia straightened her posture and held her arms out to her sides, aiming her palms away from her body at acute angles. The emitters in her boots raised her into the air, steadied by those in her gloves. She increased the energy output and fully left the ground behind, ascending into the night.

The wind whipped across her body and nipped at her skin where it snuck under her protective layers. The pinprick-like stings reminded Dahlia why she wanted to begin working with the new armor pieces, yet it could not diminish the exhilaration. Even more so than the test run on Omega, never before had Dahlia experienced such elemental freedom. As she skimmed through the dark sky like a nighthawk far above the city lights, Dahlia imagined that she appeared as a small but brilliant shooting star to the colonists below.

Dahlia logged more flight time than sleep that night.

* * *

When the system's sun, Iera, ushered in the new morning, the rest of the Ryxera crew scarcely had time to eat before Dahlia handed out assignments. When she had landed after her secret nocturnal flight, she remembered how Lt. Rhodes and other members of the colonial militia assumed she was the ship's captain. Dahlia decided to run with it, especially since the pirates could arrive at any time to seek retribution.

She asked Jin to contact the relevant authorities and officially register their ship as the ISV Ryxera, so as to not be chased as pirates themselves. David was asked to contact his uncle and the other rescued colonists and ask if they would like to charter the Ryxera to ferry them back to Sineaus or elsewhere. Dahlia provided Elsai with a list of tools and basic supplies to acquire in town. As for Hann, she requested his assistance in conducting a full diagnostic of the ship.

"I'm not a technician," he argued. "I don't know how to handle a ship."

"Well guess what? You're going to learn!" Dahlia said, slapping the back of one of her gloved hands into the palm of the other. "Do you think I was born knowing how to handle a ship's engineering? No, I learned by doing. This is a learning experience, so let's go."

As Dahlia shooed the crew along to their appointed tasks, Elsai pulled her erstwhile captain aside.

"I'm not sure the rescued colonists would want to travel aboard this ship," she softly protested.

"Why not? They need a ride home, and we need to make some credits."

"They were just imprisoned aboard this ship for who knows how long, Dahlia. The only space we have is in the cargo hold, but if we make them stay in there again it could harm their mental states right when they're starting to recover."

"Look, life is suffering sometimes, but experience is the reward for that pain," Dahlia argued. "I went through Hell, but I got past it and I'm all the stronger for it."

Elsai thought to herself, "No...you didn't."

"We pissed off a bunch of Terminus pirates," Dahlia complained. "We need to be ready if they come after us. We can't count on the bumpkin militia here to protect us. The time's come to rely on ourselves, so let's get out collective rears in gear."

Watching Dahlia drag Hann towards the engineering section, Elsai was sure that beneath the human woman's helmet were bloodshot eyes, dark circles, and the other human symptoms of sleep deprivation she'd witnessed at the Omega Clinic and among the rescued colonists. Although the quarian girl had discovered a talent for counseling at the clinic, Dahlia Stark represented an intimidating case study. The human woman kept twelve years of pain and fear sealed away behind the protection of her suit. As a quarian, Elsai found the irony tragic more than anything.

Dahlia's forcefulness was risky, and not just for herself. Jin's loss was far too recent, Ryxera's death far too fresh of a wound for him to simply move on, like Dahlia would have him do. Elsai resolved to offer all the support she could to the bereaved volus, especially if for no other reason than to avoid butting helmets with Hann again. Even if their conflict about returning to the fleet was solved for the moment, Elsai dreaded the new argument guaranteed to ignite when he inevitably tried to persuade her to return with him.

She knew that, eventually, Dahlia would have to confront what she was running from, but Elsai could not yet find the confidence, the strength to have that conversation.

"For all our problems, at least Dave had better be stable now," Elsai grumbled as she set out for town with her shopping list. "Keelah se'lai."

By the homeworld I hope to see one day. Most quarians used the phrase as an expression of hope. Elsai, confident that her people would die out before ever reclaiming their homeworld, had adapted the phrase into the most bitter of curses.

* * *

Once Dahlia had the tools she needed to erect a rudimentary workshop in the cargo hold, her aggressive management style mellowed out - to the relief of the other crew members. Hann felt like a terrible assistant as he was all thumbs (or the quarian equivalent) with things mechanical, and Dahlia's frustration with him often left shivers of anxiety running down his spine. David agreed with Elsai's concerns about forcing the colonists aboard the former slave ship, so he merely claimed to contact his Uncle Oswald. The rescued colonists needed more time both to recover and sort out their plans.

Jin, to Elsai's surprise, sincerely enjoyed registering their ship with the Alliance, Council, and Horizon colonial authorities.

"I always enjoyed...the administrative aspects of my business," Jin huffed proudly. "Getting my hands dirty with some salvage….could be exciting, but paperwork was….just very calming."

"What do we do next?" Hann asked. "Dahlia's taking charge, but I just helped her carry two of those armor suits down to her new workshop, so I think she will be preoccupied for a while."

"Dave's been spending most of his time with his relatives," Elsai said. "We could also go into the colony - pick up where we left off at Dr. Solus's clinic and help out at the hospital."

"Not a bad idea. I've been thinking that medical training or new techniques might be a good Pilgrimage gift to bring back," Hann said, his posture straightening with his rising enthusiasm. "Would you like to join us, Jin?"

"No, no, fleet-clans," Jin said quickly. "I...I cannot go back to a hospital….and see all those sick people."

"Jin, why don't you scan the local extranet?" Elsai suggested. "Look for leads on good deals for tech Dahlia can use. Whatever she's working on….it might be good therapy for her."


	6. Episode 18 - Battle for Horizon

The Ryxera crew was on Horizon for three weeks when the sky fell.

* * *

Hann and Elsai were volunteering at Barton Hospital in the colonial capital, wondering why the staff suddenly buzzed with activity, like a hive of bees agitated by a looming threat.

David was checking in with his uncle's family, as he did every day since landing on Horizon, but the communication cut off unexpectedly.

"What in the…?" he growled. "Pepper, what happened to the channel?"

"Pepper's offline," Jin wheezed. "Dahlia's up to something in her workshop."

* * *

"My transfer to the new hardware is complete, ma'am."

Pepper's voice chimed through the headset Dahlia wore. She heard her companion's update despite being intensely focused on completing the work before her.

"Good to hear. I'd say we're about….95% percent done."

"Ma'am, since returning online I conducted a sweep of comm channels as per your security protocols. The colonial militia is reporting a pirate raid in progress."

An observer would have seen, beneath the dangling shop lights, the color drain from Dahlia's face. She really wanted to shove her head into the helmet clenched in her hands, but she knew it was imperative that she finish integrating its communication interface.

"How many ships?" Dahlia whispered, struggling to maintain her concentration while tracing a conduit within the helmet circuitry with her soldering tool.

"Planetary defense forces have identified at least six distinct ships including five frigates and one vessel near cruiser size which has been converted into a carrier configuration."

"Where do you peg the defense force's chances for victory?"

"My tactical subroutines are inadequate for such calculations."

Dahlia wanted to scream out, demanding a guess. She held her tongue, though, knowing that it would only produce a potentially uncooperative A.I. This was a day unlike any other, and they would need each other more than ever.

* * *

The batarian was baffled. He rushed down to check in with Dahlia, only to find the cargo hold empty. The loading bay hatch was open, and a small point of light was quickly receding into the morning sky.

"Dahlia's gone," he called.

"Yeah, Pepper just sent an update…." Jin gasped. "The colony is under attack...The pirates have come."

"Is this ship ready for combat?" David asked, clenching his fist.

"Um….Dahlia said the shields were online….when she and Hann inspected the ship….The guns should be functional….but I don't know if they're loaded….I just closed the cargo hold….and the ship is pressurizing."

"Okay, I'll check the guns. Get the ship in the air."

"We're….we're going to fight?" Jin squeaked hoarsely through his breather.

"I won't let them hurt my family again," David growled, directing his growing ire to the sky rather than the volus.

"Did I mention that my piloting experience….is just aircars and cargo skiffs?"

"I don't care, Jin."

"Ryxie even used to poke fun at me….for flying too slow."

"I don't care, Jin!"

Jin complied, in his own way. Watching David climb into one of the dorsal turrets, Jin resolved to keep a distance and use the colony's defense craft as a screen - letting David pick off soft targets from a distance. The volus remembered the maneuver from a docudrama war vid he watched, depicting Saren Arterius's geth fleet attacking Irune rather than the Citadel. A rookie wing of the Volus Bombing Fleet, unsuited for frontline combat, took up long range fire support positions behind a line of turian cruisers defending their client race's homeworld.

The pirate flotilla entered the atmosphere as the Ryxera curled up its landing gears and took flight. Two of the frigates showed signs of damage inflicted by the first waves of scrambled defense fighters. The unharmed, modified carrier dropped into the colony's airspace at the lead of the force, screened by a handful of close support fighters and emerging wings of Mantis gunships deploying from its belly.

Militia gunships took wing from landing pads along the perimeter of the colony. Interceptor fighters screamed into action from planetary defense force outposts in the surrounding mountainous highlands.

David got acclimated to the turret controls. He narrowed his four eyes and focused on an approaching pirate gunship, lining up his first shot….which flew wide of the target. The Mantis did not even need to evade; David's aim was simply far from the mark.

The once idyllic skies of the garden world colony were torn asunder as the battle was fully joined. The waning morning was rent by the whine and screech of ordinance loosed from vulcan gun mounts and rocket pods. Bursts of dust and debris polluted the air from glancing hits and shells impacting on kinetic barriers. Defense aircraft worked to lure smaller enemy vessels away from the densely populated colonial capital, but the capital ships maintained position.

David roared with delight as he scored a solid hit on a gunship, but groaned and pounded his foot against the cramped turret housing when he realized the target's shields absorbed the lion's share of the force.

"Uh oh….I think you got their attention," Jin buzzed over the comms, competing with the sound of enemy rounds making contact with the Ryxera's shields. "What the….we're receiving a message….from the lead ship."

"Let's hear it," David barked as he wildly unloaded his turret's magazine at a pair of incoming gunships.

"You messed with the wrong people, kids," promised the turian pirate commander. His words dripped sardonicism through the comms, followed by a patrician laugh punctuated by his clicking mandibles. "Now you'll see why it's hazardous to your health to steal from us."

The channel went dead.

David watched several wings of support craft and one of the frigates redirecting towards the Ryxera. Outnumbered, outgunned, and handily overpowered, he was ready to beg Jin to hurry the ship away to anywhere else when the tail of one of the Mantis gunships erupted in a shower of flame, sparks, and shrapnel.

"I can't leave you guys alone for a minute, can I?" Dahlia's voice rang over the comms.

* * *

From his cockpit, DeStefano watched Toombs struggle to keep his bird aloft. His tail stabilizers had been blown away, but DeStefano couldn't see the attacker. The only contacts on his rear radar were two more wings of friendly gunships, backed up by the imposing silhouette of their frigate Moloch, as they hunted down their gang's stolen ship.

DeStefano's eyes were wrenched from his radar screen as something landed on the prow of his Mantis, rattling the gunship and blotting out the sunlight from his canopy.

A single figure in a hardsuit perched on his canopy, holding onto the framework between the clear panes. As she waved at him like some eager tourist, DeStefano had only a heartbeat to notice the light welling up within her gauntlet's palm before the cockpit exploded in a shower of broken shards and bent metal. She ripped the pilot from his seat and hurled him into the river below.

* * *

Dahlia clambered into the now vacant pilot's seat. Seizing the gunship controls, she forced the aircraft around and aimed it for the closing frigate. The other raider gunships were still too bewildered to react, unsure what they were seeing, and Dahlia slipped the commandeered craft right by them. The frigate, despite its maneuverability, was simply too large of a target to miss. Dahlia set the gunship on a collision course and bailed out, reigniting her repulsors when she was clear of the expected impact radius.

Balancing herself in midair, she watched the gunship's hull sliced apart by the angular prow of the frigate. The fuel tanks combusted and the Mantis' miniscule eezo core detonated, leaving a fiery, jagged wound along the frigate's bow. Dahlia had little time to admire her work, though, for Pepper reported several more hostile targets approaching the Ryxera. They were more wary of the unknown, flightsuited attacker, so rather than trying the dramatic smash-and-grab again, Dahlia simply decided to pulverize their tail stabilizers.

"Jin, focus on evading," she called through her comm. "That frigate will tear you apart. Just fly in zig-zags, as fast as you can."

Once she finished with the gunships, finding that their shielding was either limited or that kinetic barriers were poorly suited to absorbing repulsor blasts, Dahlia turned her sights on the smoke trailing behind the wounded frigate hounding her friends.

"So does anyone know how this many ships even slipped past the colony's patrol fleet?" Dahlia asked as she flew into the frigate's breached hull and began dropping any pirate crew within reach with shots from her repulsors.

"I've been monitoring military communication channels," Pepper announced. "Sixty-seven minutes before this attack, the bulk of the colony's patrol ships responded to an attack by unknown vessels against mining outposts of the system's second planet, Prospect."

"Great, they made a diversion," David sneered over his headset.

"Oh come on, don't cry. This ship wasn't making it back into orbit anyhow!"

"What did you say, Dahlia?" Jin asked, very confused and frightened.

"I wasn't talking to you guys. I was talking to this pirate who tried to sneak up on me. I pegged him in the gut and he started crying. Oh jeez, now he's throwing up. Anyhow, I'll keep in touch with you guys. I'm almost finished here. Next, I'm going after that command carrier."

It did not take long for Dahlia to incapacitate the pirate frigate. The crew were not expecting a surprise boarding, so they were lightly armed and armored. What small arms they had ready were not able to breach the kinetic barriers of Dahlia's armor, overcharged by her arc reactor. She marched from the bridge to the command center, pelting any available console with repulsor blasts. When she was certain she'd stripped them of control over the ship's weapons, she bid the reeling pirates a sarcastic "goodbye" and escaped out the bow hull breach again.

Colonial defense aircraft faced a withering hail of anti-aircraft fire from the carrier, so they had difficulty closing on the pirates' flagship. Dahlia, a target just as fast moving but only the size of a single human body, easily evaded the incoming flak. She stormed one of the launch bays, unleashing repulsor shots on anything that moved, and asked Pepper to plot directions for the bridge. Dahlia had overheard the pirate commander's broadcasted threat to her crew, and now she wanted to offer a forceful rebuttal in person.


	7. Episode 19 - Debriefing

"Rhodes, am I being thanked or arrested here? I'm getting some mixed messages from the crowd here."

Dahlia turned to the lieutenant, standing out of the way in a corner of the conference room. A parade of colonial officers had been streaming in and out, bringing new datapads and whispered messages. Meanwhile, Dahlia had been kept waiting, seated at the center of the activity, for nearly an hour. Bored out of her mind, she'd have been secretly chatting with Pepper and scanning planetary extranet activity...if they let her put her helmet back on. While the officers accepted that they could not get Dahlia to remove her armor, they forced her to keep the helmet on the broad table running the length of the conference room.

When the ships of the colonial patrol fleets returned from Prospect, the pirate flotilla beat a hasty retreat - even though Dahlia preferred to believe it was her siege of the command carrier that drove off the attackers. The withdrawal was disorderly. Scant few fighters and nearly no gunships escaped back to the pirate carrier. Two of the frigates, including the one Dahlia incapacitated, were destroyed. The other frigates took significant damage before escaping the planet's orbit via FTL travel. The carrier also suffered severe damage during the retreat, thanks in large part to Dahlia.

Colonial forces began rounding up the stranded pirate personnel. Once she confirmed that the Ryxera was safely grounded, Dahlia flew into the city to secure the hospital where Hann and Elsai volunteered. That was where the colonial militia found Dahlia, and they "politely" passed along their superiors' invitation to debrief the unexpected ally in the battle. Not keen on making a scene, and feeling the adrenaline working its way out of her system, Dahlia did not argue.

Although the rush of battle had passed, Dahlia still felt waves of excitement racing through her body. Back on the Flotilla, she'd experience a minor burst of exhilaration after completing a difficult repair job. Imani'Barael had noted that Dahlia always became more outgoing, more "chatty" in these moments. The thrill of victory in outright battle introduced the same emotions but in stronger, unadulterated doses, leaving her quite talkative.

"If the brass here is debating about which medal to give me, don't worry about size. As you can see, I have plenty of room on the trophy rack," she said, tapping her knuckles on the armor's flat chestplate. "Then again, as they say, size isn't everything. They also say that quantity has a quality all its own, so if you want to give me a few awards, who am I to stop you?"

"Ms. Stark," Lt. Rhodes said on behalf of the assembled officers, skipping the fake name Dahlia had previously given the colonial authorities, "Please shut up."

"Ohhkaaay, you know who I really am," Dahlia shook her head. "Who blabbed?"

"We interviewed those rescued miners you brought in for details about you," Rhodes said, "but they said you're not related to the Zhang family or that adopted batarian like you claimed. Also, that one quarian friend of yours let your secret slip during debriefing."

"Hann, you bosh'tet," Dahlia sighed under her breath. "Well, if you don't want me to talk, I'd be more than happy to listen. The bad guys flew off, the good guys won. This should be open-and-shut, yet you've got me sitting in this astoundingly uncomfortable chair, so something strange must be going on. What is it about this battle that I don't know...or do I know and you want to find out?"

"There's a lot we want to know," said one of the officers stepping forward, wearing the most decorations of the bunch. "What these pirates wanted, who they're working with, and what you're really doing on our colony. You would have been arrested already if we didn't have footage of you attacking the pirate vessels. The raiders who attacked our operations on Prospect used weaponry the likes of which we've never seen," he continued. "I've also never seen anything like your armor and its weapons. Coincidentally, these pirates are part of the same cadre who you stole your ship from."

"What are you suggesting, Ms….?" Dahlia began.

"General. I am General Virginia Osborn, commander of the garrison here in Discovery. What I'm suggesting is that these pirates either followed you and your crew to Horizon, or you led them here. Unless you provide me some information, I am inclined to believe that you're in league with them."

With a puff of exasperated breath, Dahlia roused her unkempt bangs resting against her forehead. She idly remembered that a haircut was probably long overdue. She also realized that she only next opened her mouth because she was previously in a very good mood.

"To start off, yes, I am really Dahlia Stark and yes, my father was THAT Tony Stark - hence where I inherited such tech that easily blows your mind. My parents' death did not exactly make me a fan of pirates, raiders, or other hired killers, which is why I would never help them. However, I will steal and wreck their ships, and I'm quite good at it, too. Now what was this about the weapons they used on Prospect? I didn't see anything unusual during the battle."

At a signal from General Osborn, one of the lesser officers activated a holographic display. The motes of light cycled through scrambled images taken from orbital and ground-based surveillance around Prospect during the diversionary attack. Dahlia had no clue what she was looking at, and she made that clear to the assembled officers.

"Reports from the patrol fleet described the attackers as a swarm of tiny, spherical craft," Rhodes explained. "When I say tiny, I mean it: purportedly they weren't even half the size of one of our Trident fighters. They were probably drones, but they wreaked havoc on our ships using high output beam weapons. Our forces were pulled back not only to repel the pirates from Horizon but to avoid losing any more ships to those drones. We still don't know what the situation is back on Prospect."

"The pirates I fought here and on Omega were armed with crap. I can - and have - put together better weapons out of scrap," Dahlia stated. "To have access to drones capable of trouncing capital ships? Someone with access to superior tech was working with the pirates."

"Clearly," the general huffed indignantly. "Whoever it was, our best assessment is that they were testing our defenses."

"Want my advice?" Dahlia said, leaning forward onto the conference table and cocking her head. "Swallow your pride and call up the Alliance. You don't have to join them or accept a garrison, but at least ask for some technical support. Maybe they'll help you install some defense cannons or something."

"Actually, we would like to acquire your armor," General Osborn announced.

"Not going to happen," Dahlia said matter-of-factly. She rose from her chair, snatching up her helmet. "Since it seems I am leaving here without any medals and you aren't jumping at the chance to arrest me, I'm taking my leave of this indoor military parade."

General Osborn lifted a stiff hand to stay any of her subordinates from stopping Ms. Stark's exit. Irately, she recognized that force would only drive the inventor further away….or make an outright enemy of her. Instead, Osborn simply demanded updates from recon drones dispatched to Prospect and a status report on hunting down any remaining pirates planetside. The general paid no notice when Lt. Rhodes followed Ms. Stark into the hallway of the military administration hallway.

"I don't like being followed, Colonel Rhodey," Dahlia called to the lieutenant, trying to disguise her slight limp. Her synthetic leg was fine, but Dahlia had sprained her other leg during the aerial firefight. Her arms were likewise very sore.

"You're passing up a great opportunity," she cautioned Dahlia. "Even if you don't care about swimming in credits, this is a chance to help protect a lot of people who need it."

"My old man hated making weapons and my mum hated selling them, but after Jormangund started calling the shots they didn't have a choice. This suit is for my own protection," Dahlia said, trying to keep the bravado from draining out of her voice. "I'm not letting just anyone do whatever they want with it. Someone built those drones that attacked Prospect. I don't want to see my tech used like that."

"Colonies have been getting hit throughout the Traverse and Terminus Systems," Lt. Rhodes persisted as Dahlia donned her helmet and resealed her armor. "In three cases, the entire populations vanished without a trace. Someone out there already has bleeding edge tech, and the rest of us need a defense. I'd think that you, of all people, should understand how much it stinks to feel defenseless."

Dahlia gave up looking for an elevator. She turned sharply on her heel and stepped out onto a wide balcony, running the length of the building wing and overlooking the river. Without another word, she ignited her repulsors and took off, zipping towards the Ryxera.

* * *

"What is this, Annoy Dahlia Day?" Dahlia exclaimed upon entering the Ryxera's living space, finding a stranger seated amongst the crew. "Just to warn you, I'm on a serious roll today. I've already beaten a pirate fleet and a roomful of military brass, so you don't stand a chance."

The visitor, a human dressed like any ordinary colonist or spacer, offered a look halfway between confused and amused. The lack of uniform or weaponry was a good sign, but Dahlia was not about to give him the benefit of any doubt. He wasn't one of the rescued prisoners, and after her none-too-subtle display during the colony's defense, it was unlikely that he stopped by simply to say "good job" or even "thank you."

"Actually, Mr. Hand is here for me," David said.

"Please, call me Viktor," he added courteously. "I don't mean to give you any more trouble. Believe me, I know that after this terrible attack, some peace and quiet is just what the doctor ordered."

Not yet satisfied by Viktor's introduction, Dahlia pressed him for more details. Viktor extended greetings from the investment consortium he represented. His employers were impressed by the survey results posted by the Zhang family's mining colony on Sineaus prior to the slaver raid, and they were interested in reinvesting in the operation. Dahlia could guess how excited the offer made David and his uncle. He had tried to hide it from the crew, but the dutiful batarian son had been steadily losing hope that his family's business would survive.

Dahlia was relieved, not only because David's family had their solution but also because she was not the one Viktor wanted. Dahlia had fled so urgently from Lieutenant Rhodes because she hated feeling pursued. Even though "Colonel Rhodey" was the least threatening of all the colonial officers and presented herself as a potential friend, knowing that the lieutenant's superiors had clear designs on Dahlia's tech left her paranoia flaring. With Viktor, for once it seemed that Dahlia was not the person of interest.

However, while a life of paranoia and hiding taught Dahlia to be suspicious and cautious, Viktor Hand had far more training and experience in deception. Cerberus and the Illusive Man would have little use for him, otherwise. Viktor had tracked Dahlia to Horizon by following a handful of clues: outbound communication from the rescued colonists, the ship registration that the volus filed. Arriving in the wake of the pirate raid was merely a coincidence, although her performance in the battle served as a demonstration that Ms. Stark had more to offer Cerberus than simply clues to technology left behind by her father.

Unlike the colonial military, Viktor knew that a direct approach with Dahlia was doomed from the start. He realized that even his initial plan, offering to invest in Dahlia's work without strings attached, might have triggered warning bells for her. His new strategy, unfolding as he continued to talk with David Zhang while keeping Dahlia on the periphery of the conversation, was to let the batarian do the convincing. David would invite Dahlia and the crew along for his family's return to Sineaus, asking them to assist with repairs and getting operations back under way. Viktor assumed the quarians would jump at the chance to earn resources, favors, or goodwill for the flotilla, and the volus would be willing to go along for the ride. Dahlia, meanwhile, would make use of the mining colony's high grade industrial tools to continue her work, thus indirectly benefitting from Cerberus' generosity.

As he spoke with the crew, Viktor could plainly read how well things were moving along. Even if it meant playing a long game, the plan was already in motion.


	8. Episode 20 - Elsewhere

General Osborn scared Lieutenant Monica Rhodes.

However, Rhodes promised herself that she was not afraid of Osborn, and she spent the walk to the general's office reconciling the two ideas in her mind.

As a soldier, there were a few things that Rhodes could forgive herself for finding daunting - like a charging krogan, a slaver raid, or confined spaces. Well, maybe she couldn't quite rationalize that last anxiety, but it was there nonetheless - not that anyone else on the planet needed to know.

As for the colonial general, even if Rhodes had not been the proud recipient of commendations for discipline and competence in the academy, she would know not to antagonize Osborn. She knew too much of the general's background to risk Osborn's rumored wrath. After all, in the commissary, Rhodes had overheard some NCOs with more youth than discretion gossiping about how Horizon was essentially an exile for Osborn.

When the door slid open for Rhodes, she received no welcome from the general. She was just expected to sit, be quiet, patient, and obedient. Rhodes had long seconds turning into interminable minutes to take in the sharp lines of Osborn's face and her short, severe hair as the general scoured through who-knows-what on datapads and consoles kept in regimented order on her desk.

"We're getting that armor," Osborn declared with all the abruptness of a surprise cannonade.

"I beg your pardon, general?" Rhodes asked, although there was little confusion about what her commanding officer meant

"Stark. Her armor. We are going to acquire it, no matter what."

The deepening creases on the general's face, left by experience rather than age, made it clear to Rhodes what was on all the screens in front of Osborn. Information about the Alliance. The general practically hissed her words.

"The damned civilian government has seen fit to ignore my recommendations and has accepted the Alliance's offer of aid. An Alliance officer will be dispatched to oversee the installation of a set of planetary defense cannons. This is just the first step, you see? The Alliance is spreading into the Traverse, and for all their stubbornness, these colonists are too scared to stand up for their independence."

It was curious how General Osborn dismissed both the Alliance and the colonies so handily. It left Rhodes wondering with whom the general identified , or if she even had any such grounding left anymore.

"Pirates, slavers, batarians. These colonists were supposed to have left Alliance space with the courage to face these threats, but evidently they've got no stomach left for what it takes to preserve their freedom."

As the general continued, Rhodes again quickly ran through the difference between being scared by the general as opposed to being afraid.

"I'm familiar with the Alliance's proposal of technical support for defense," Rhodes spoke up, finding a momentary break in her CO's tirade to interject. "Aside from the cannons, they're only sending a single officer. It's hardly an occupying force. And if I may be so frank, the attacks on both Horizon and especially on Prospect have revealed holes in our security measures."

"A single officer is how it starts," the general leaned forward like some predator, some goblin ready to pounce. "A single damned person is all it takes for everything to fall apart. There's a reason why Saren Arterius and Matriarch Benezia are such embarrassments to their species. We don't need the Alliance planting their guns and their flag on our planet. Stark, one wretched girl, with a single suit of that armor was able to tear through those pirates. If we could outfit a corps of soldiers with armor like that, we would never need to depend on anyone else for protection - not the Alliance, not the Council. No one."

There was so much that Rhodes wanted to say. She wanted to call out the general on the hypocrisy of jealously guarding Horizon's colonial independence while scheming to steal Dahlia's private property. She wanted to warn the general about acting clandestinely without the approval of the colonial government. She wanted to suggest that the general consult the unit counselor for anxiety...or paranoia.

However, Rhodes remembered what she knew about Osborn: the decimation of her squad during the Skyllian Blitz, her merciless command during the Siege of Torfan, and of course, her discharge from the Systems Alliance for assaulting three members of parliament at Arcturus Station after an argument spiraled out of control. Perhaps it was a sign that the colonies were desperate for protection, even long before these recent attacks, that a disgraced, potentially unstable general could immediately find a new command on Horizon.

Maybe Rhodes was afraid of Osborn after all.

* * *

"You're wasted on that backwater. You'd be of more use here on Prospect."

"I won't be here long. Stark and her friends will be leaving for Sineus soon. Besides, I'm the people person, Brand. You're the one who enjoys playing with dangerous alien toys."

"Couldn't you play that colonial general to do your dirty work? Even on unsecured channels there's chatter about how fixated she is on Stark and her work."

"No way; Osborn's a disaster waiting to happen. Cerberus doesn't need the likes of her. Besides, the general would probably be happy to kill Stark, shuck the armor off of her like a dead crab, and call it a day. She's too useful to us alive."

"The Stark family is a dead end. Even if they have anything left to give the galaxy, it will pale in comparison to what we're looking into over here."

By sheer coincidence, Agents Hand and Brand were assigned to the same system but for different reasons. While Hand's goal was to support and subtly guide Dahlia Stark, Brand was dispatched more recently to investigate the attack on the mining facilities at Prospect. The reports of weaponry and drones far more advanced than anything nominally found in Council or Alliance space had certainly piqued Cerberus interest.

Agent Brand was their best person for the recovery and analysis of xenotechnology. However, Brand was more secretive and paranoid than even Miss Stark. Brand never made video reports, except possibly to the Illusive Man, and only ever communicated with other operatives through a voice changer. Hand wasn't even sure whether Brand was a man or woman. Brand's results, though, earned plenty of leeway with these eccentricities. In fact, Brand's involvement in the Prospect investigation lent credence to a hypothesis that Hand had been putting together:

The Illusive Man suspected that whoever was responsible for the raid on Prospect was also behind the recent mass disappearances among human colonies in the Attican Traverse. From conversations with other operatives, Hand had cajoled enough details to piece together this puzzle. As a result, he was especially glad to be leaving Horizon soon. The attack on Prospect was merely a test of the colony's defenses, a harbinger of a greater danger.


	9. Episode 21 - Farewell to Horizon

There was no more time for second thoughts, doubts, or worries. The deed was done, the message sent, the die cast. Lt. Rhodes ran many cliches and platitudes through her mind as a mantra to assuage her troubled mind.

Even the most forgiving, understanding of commanding officers would deliver a stiff punishment for such disobedience. Considering that it was General Osborn's order that Rhodes had sidestepped, the lieutenant figured that she'd be straight court martialed - if the general didn't strangle her first.

That same certainty of wrath, though, was what ultimately convinced Rhodes to send the warning to Stark.

* * *

"Dave, tell your uncle we'll meet him at Sineus. We're leaving. Now."

Dahlia stomped into the ship's common area wearing her full armor. Granted, that wasn't unusual in itself, but she was clearly carrying herself differently. She wasn't spooked by imaginary threats. This time she was agitated by something right in front of her.

"Ms. Stark, what's going on?" Viktor asked. Hand was aboard the Ryxera to help stow the supplies his employer had provided as part of the contract. He had asked to bunk aboard the ship as a representative of his company, but Dahlia had opposed the idea so strongly that Viktor worried she was a step away from flattening his face with a repulsor burst.

"That colonel, Ms. Rhodey, just sent me a message. General Hardass is coming to confiscate my gear and our ship - coming today. I don't intend to wait around to offer hors d'oeuvres to a squad of colonial soldiers, so let's get this eezo can moving."

"I must object, Ms. Stark," Viktor insisted. "I need to contact the company. There's supplies to requisition, credits to transfer. We may need to hire escorts and…"

"Stow it," Dahlia snapped. "We'll just have to make do. Don't worry, I happen to be a master of 'winging it.' We'll be fine. Everything will be fine."

No one dared argue. In fact, the crew seemed to reach an unspoken agreement to save all questions until the Ryxera was offworld and approaching the nearest mass relay - and until Dahlia's hands stopped their barely perceptible twitch. Even after such a brief time as a crew, everyone had learned to read their erstwhile leader's body language. Even Viktor realized that it was futile to debate any further, lest he spoil the trust he was still trying to establish.

The crew left Dahlia to disappear into the engineering section. Dave and Jin took the helm. Viktor activated his omni-tool to reach some of his surface contacts, ones he could call upon safely without encryption, to update the arrangements as best as he could. Hann and Elsai...tried to make themselves useful as best as they could. Hann worked on straightening up the living quarters, and Elsai popped down to engineering, assuming Dahlia would need help.

"In more ways than one," Elsai thought before scolding herself for the scathing notion. She knew she would have to be as diplomatic as possible, not only because of Dahlia's potentially fragile state, but also because of the request she needed to make of the human.

"Dahlia, I would like you to make me a suit like yours," Elsai asked, after convincing Dahlia to accept her help.

It was not an unexpected request. Somehow, Dahlia felt annoyed that it took Elsai this long to drum up the confidence to ask. They were offworld now. The threat of arrest by General Osborn had lost its worrying grasp on Dahlia's mind. Standing at the open cargo hatch, zooming in with her helmet's visor, Dahlia even got to see the twisting expressions on the colonial general's face as she watched the Ryxera escape right before her eyes. That was a real mood booster.

"I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about a quarian variant of the suit. I don't know why, but I have."

"You were probably thinking about how it could help people living on the Flotilla."

"That's giving me way too much credit. Besides, I thought you didn't care about the Flotilla."

"I think it's doomed, along with our whole race, and I don't want to tether my life to that fate any more. Still, that doesn't mean I can't wish them well."

"Even if you think it's an empty wish."

"Yeah," Elsai sighed through her mask.

The two of them kept working in silence for a while. Dahlia took care of most of the work, but she occasionally delegated something to Elsai. It was as much to teach her basic technical skills aboard a starship as it was to make her feel like she was helpful.

"When we get to Sineus, I'll see what I can do. I damn well better have more tools and parts to work with - better quality, too - so it will be easier there. Crap, do you think Hann will want in on the action, too?"

"Probably," Elsai hazarded a nervous laugh.

"Great, the start of an entire Quarian Iron Legion," Dahlia grumbled. "Just what the galaxy needs."


	10. Episode 22 - Second Interlude

"Pepper, are we recording? Good.

"This is Dahlia Natasha Stark. Right now I'm standing in an enclosed colony on one of Sineaus' moons, out in the ass end of the Attican Traverse. I'm not crazy about being only a short relay jump from Omega again, but I also didn't want to hang around on Horizon and get arrested by General Crazy Woman. With not much else to do in the galaxy, Elsai roped me into sticking around with her, Hann, and Jin as they help Dave's family fix their home and business. That Viktor Hand guy is still here, too. Says he's 'protecting his bosses' investment.' I don't care much for that business nonsense - or him, for that matter. I just want some space and tools to keep working on my armor, and I gotta admit that I get plenty of both here.

"Anyhow, Pepper convinced me to record a project log as I work.

"Seeing as how I spent the entire trip from Horizon to Sineas icing my leg, my first order of business is to incorporate micro-servo motor enhancements in the armor. While using an ordinary hardsuit as a base meant plenty of protection, it still relies on the wearer's own physique, and mine is...well….lacking.

"Dammit, Pepper, I didn't program you to snicker.

"Yeah, I wrenched my leg badly during the dogfight over Horizon, so I need to take some of the strain off my own body. Fortunately, Viktor and Dave are replacing the colony's mining drones with more advanced models, so they've passed the older ones along to me. Since they're designed with industrial-strength hydraulics and servos to manage loads of many tons, there's plenty for me to work with.

"Of course, that led to a new question: should I just retrofit my current suit with the enhancements, or build a new suit from the ground up?"

Viktor shut off the recording that had begun to replay itself. With closed eyes, he inhaled sharply through the nose, trying to calm and center himself. Dahlia made the first of these recordings a few weeks ago, and Viktor had just finished combing them again for information. In truth, he was procrastinating.

The Illusive Man's demand for updates on the surveillance of Dahlia Stark had slackened off as of late, and Viktor Hand knew it was because his superior's pet project neared completion. Viktor wasn't supposed to know about the existence of Cerberus's most classified operation, but he had come across the name "Lazarus." While he did not know the details of the project, Viktor knew that the Illusive Man was obsessed with its potential results.

None of the workers or techs among the crew of the Zhang family's Sineaus mining colony were savvy enough to detect the hidden encryption programs embedded in the new communication equipment that Viktor provided via a Cerberus front company. Viktor was initially wary of Dahlia, but she proved too focused on her personal projects to sniff out the spy programs, even despite her apparent paranoia. All of her allies were of barely adequate skill, so they were of no consequence.

Nevertheless, Viktor regretted not reining in their antics and personal drama, otherwise he could have prevented the present situation that he now had to report

Thus far, Viktor's superiors had been impressed by Dahlia Stark's progress. Since leaving Horizon and following David Zhang's adoptive family back to Sineaus, Dahlia had not only made significant upgrades to her armored flight suit, she had also begun to construct duplicate, albeit lower yield arc reactors for the quarians, Hann and Elsai, to power their enviro-suits' systems. He suspected Dahlia was also working on retrofitting repulsors into their gauntlets and boots.

Evidently, she had offered to do the same for Jin's suit, too, but he declined. Based on his compiled dossier on the volus, Viktor suspected that Jin was probably afraid of zipping around, terribly uncoordinated.

As for David's refusal of a flight suit of his own, Dahlia's recordings offered this commentary:

"I also offered to outfit Dave with a suit, but he was strongly opposed. Although he wouldn't say why, his dear uncle sold him out. It turns out that our friendly neighborhood batarian suffers from motion sickness and is somewhat afraid of heights."

Remembering that snippet at least gave Viktor a silent chuckle as he tapped his foot in idleness. Viktor was not allowed to act until he filed a report with the Illusive Man, yet every minute he delayed meant the runaway inventor had yet more of a head start.

He decided to call Brand.

"You let her get away? So much for you being the people person," Brand's digitally scrambled voice mocked Viktor after he explained the recent complications.

"Stark is unpredictable, even unstable. She was supposed to be vulnerable, yet treating her carefully leaves her paranoid, while imminent danger makes her stronger and defiant."

"Maybe you wanted her to escape," Brand insinuated.

"That's rubbish."

"Is it? You've been putting off your report to the Illusive Man, yet you had no trouble reporting to your other master."

"You are a strange person, Brand. Half of all our conversations seem like pure nonsense."

"Listen well, Hand. The time has come for you to actually learn something about me. First off, you are not the only one who likes to break the rules and spy on other cells and projects. Secondly, due to the nature of my work, I have access to tech beyond even the 'bleeding-edge' gear given to Cerberus' more high-priority operations. Lastly, my job is not about loyalty; it's about results. Frankly, if you are selling out the Illusive Man, as long as my own work is uninterrupted, I do not care."

Hand cut off the channel. Brand was proving even more unpredictable than Stark. He always assumed Brand was a harmless eccentric playing with alien toys, yet his contact was proving more dangerous than he imagined. Viktor decided upon action. He would report to the Illusive Man before any rumors or whispers of disloyalty could reach him.

After all, Viktor reasoned, the Cerberus mastermind would be far too wrapped up in recent developments with his pet Lazarus project to give his full attention to the Stark mission.

"There's been a complication."

"I don't care much for complications," the Illusive Man's reply was followed by a pause, presumably to take a puff from a cigarette. The audio-only communication channel spared Viktor from the Illusive Man's usual sharp, smarmy style and ubiquitous plumes of cigarette smoke.

"Ms. Stark has run off," Viktor announced. It sounded childish, but Viktor couldn't liken it any other way. "She's had a rather heated argument with her crew, and they've had a schism."

"Is this related to the quarians' disagreement about returning home?"

"Yes," Viktor sighed with a nod that his boss could not see. "Dahlia and the female quarian have taken their ship and left the system. The volus went with them. The male quarian and the batarian were left behind here on Sineaus."

"I presume you are tracking Stark?" To his agent, the Illusive Man's words sounded more like 'Do I need to replace you?'

"Of course. I tagged their ship weeks ago. They're travelling to Illium," he answered.

"A surprisingly reckless choice for Stark. Follow her. If she is emotionally vulnerable, this may be our best opportunity to recruit her."

The call ended with Hand realizing that Cerberus' assessment of Stark was just as flawed as the intel provided by Fury.


End file.
